SXSW Social Check-In Locator Apps

I’m Ready - You?

I just made it (very quickly!) through the badge check-in line at SXSW. W00t to myEmma for being the lanyard for our badges this year. Shout out to my local friends, Jonathan Gesinger and Matthew Parente, for being the face of myEmma to me.

It’s All About the Friends

If you’re going, or you’re there, I hope you’ll TALK to everyone around you! It’s amazing how much you can learn. @asos_james told me why he doesn’t have business cards. Do you have a pile of them? Do you remember who those people all are? See?

He also told me about sitby.us, another social check-in and locator app. I hadn’t heard of it yet. It’s on the SXSW site, but so is lots of other information (some of which I completely missed, thank you Dale for helping me SEE the obvious!)

Be Patient With the Traffic

So, in case you’re just a little bit like me, this post has links to the four main geo locator/social check-in apps that are likely to be getting a lot of attention and traffic at SXSW. Hopefully they’re all up to the task. I’ve already heard complaints in the line about one of them, and the article I found on SitByUs says it’s still a little unstable. I just signed up for FourSquare and connected it to my Twitter and Facebook friends (very easily, I might add), and it went PERFECTLY.

It’s understandable that they’d have a hard time with the bandwidth and traffic peaks at a convention like this, which causes anything BUT normal demands on a system. Even the large wireless carriers have trouble meeting the demand. Twitter has had trouble in the past as well. As an app developer, I totally get how hard it would be to gauge and prepare for what might be coming, cuz what if it doesn’t? That’s a big investment to hope pays off. I hope everyone is patient.

Locator Links

So, here are the links, in alphabetical order:

	FourSquare -  http://www.foursquare.com - (seems to be gaining some serious traction - over 200 of my Twitter friends were on FourSquare)
	GoWalla -  http://www.gowalla.com (earn badges for checking in places; um, don’t put your house here unless you wanna be on pleaserobme.com!)
	PlanCast -  http://www.plancast.com (list of events; is there an overall friend calendar I’m too blind to see here?)
	SitBy.Us - http://www.sitby.us (micro-locator, as in ‘what seat are you occupying?)

Then there’s always good old Twitter and Facebook.  I hope they declare hashtags in each session so it’s easy to connect quickly at the beginning of a session.

We’re Locals!

By the way, we’re located in Austin, if you’re reading this because you’re from out-of-town.  I’m more than happy to answer your Austin questions.  Outgoing, friendly, just tweet me - @cjromb.

I’m excited to have these four locator apps. I’ve signed up as cjromb on all of them.

Let’s Connect

If you see me on the apps, don’t be shy about connecting. Alot of my Austin friends/colleagues aren’t going, so this will give me a chance to find my you and my other online friends quickly and meet them in person.

Gear, Schedule, Other SXSW Posts

If you’re interested here are a few other SXSW Posts:
SXSW Gadget Girl Gear (I wrote this)
Coming to Austin, TX for SXSW?

My Schedule

Here’s my schedule so far:
http://www.budurl.com/sxswcj

Not Going?

For my friends who aren’t going, @irene_koehler created this post:
How To Enjoy SXSW (Without Even Being at SXSW)

And here’s another option for what to do if you’re here without a badge:
http://plancast.com/sxswbadgeless

Enjoy!

ENJOY SXSW, however YOU Interact with it.